Middle aged, Uncool and Not Bringing Sexy Back

Your Kitchen Predicts Marital Bliss

All sorts of online quizzes claim they can help you narrow down or hone in on what makes a successful marriage. I just took one and it was ridiculous.

The questions were all about feelings. Trust me, feelings don’t determine a marriage’s long-term stability.You know what does? Packing tape.

Specifically a roll of packing tape with one of those built-in tape rippers.

In fact, I’m going to go so far as to say that if you want to take a “will our relationship last?” test, all you need to do is go to your kitchen. There in your junk drawer, your dishwasher and fridge are all the keys to predicting long-term marital success. Let’s start with the tape.

Ah, the sweetness of a love never tested by a demon-possessed spool of packing tape.

There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who use tape and then fold it under, and those who don’t. The non-folders let the tape go rogue, thus ensuring that the next person to use the roll is left using fingernails to a) find the start of the tape and b) scrap off shards of tape all while decimating the integrity of the roll.

If a tape folder and tape “roguer” decided to couple up, beware of the tape folder having a crying jag in the kitchen that can lead to the folder throwing the roll at the floor in sheer frustration and “accidentally” hitting the roguer. Few relationships are strong enough to endure the clash of such tape-disparate personalities.

Another couple trouble zone is the dishwasher. It’s a psychological profile like no other.

Do you wash your dishes before loading them? Do you have a system based on rocket science for achieving maximum spray thrust for each dish and therefore have a precise location for each plate, glass and pan? Are you so OCD that you have been known to secretly reorganize the dishwasher after it’s been loaded by someone else?

If you answered yes to more than one of these questions, than flee like you’re being chased by a giant Cascade Platinum Dishwasher Detergent pod from anyone who is “OK” with putting a greasy, non pre-treated, saucepan on the top rack. Your relationship, if it lasts, will be a fraught with peril and teary arguments and accusations about you adoring Mrs. Meyer’s cleaning products more than your significant other. (P.S. If loving Clean Day Lemon Verbena dish soap is wrong, I don’t want to be right.)

If you want to explore the depths or your partner’s childhood feelings regarding money and mother issues, the refrigerator is a stainless steel monument to repressed emotions.

The one and only thing you need to observe is if your significant other is a food hoarder. Do they save one single, solitary olive and put it in lock down in a plastic container in the fridge? Are food expiration dates open to interpretation? Is produce that’s seen better days still “good” because “you can make a smoothie with it and no one will be able to tell that difference”?

The fridge hoarder grew up with a parent who, in a quest to never waste money, could not throw any food away. An early relationship warning sign of this type of behavior is if your partner has a mother with a freezer or extra refrigerator in the garage or basement.

If you see both a commercial fridge and freezer big enough to hold an 18-wheeler full of ice cream then I would recommend you seriously rethink your romantic life. This food-storage psychosis is a sign that if you walk your relationship down the aisle, your love will be saving a lone Tater Tot in a snack size Ziploc till death do you part.

Another indicator of relationship compatibility is the silverware drawer.

What couple can find true happiness when one has zero interest in finding out why the repository for clean silverware has crumbs in it? Even when you clean out the crumbs, they come back. Is it aliens? Is it invisible mini snackers living in your kitchen who are homesteading in your silverware drawer? The mind is boggled.

The good news is that some marriages, despite these seemingly insurmountable odds, can still succeed — flourish even. The key is to have your own packing tape, to never load the dishwasher while anyone is watching, to always eat the last Tater Tot or olive — and to clean out your silverware drawer, even daily, if you must.

There’s no reason you should let some crumbs crush your relationship mojo.

Bulls eye Snarky! My first husband was so OCD that he would get scary angry about packing tape if the end of the tape wasn’t rolled under. It wasn’t the main reason I divorced him, but it was one of the reasons.

Vintage Snarky

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